Reconsidering the Epic

Homer and Milton dominated the epic market for years, when “epic” referred to a narrative poem chronicling heroic deeds. Then movies came along, and the noun became an adjective, describing anything with majestic sweep (and typically a big budget, lots of extras, and a tyrannical director). But couldn’t it be argued that bold explorations of “ordinary” life and the craggy topography of the heart also qualify as epic? The most recent spate of Criterion releases throws the idea of an epic into unique relief, with audacious portrayals of grandeur as well as detail and nuance.

By the time he took on The King Of Kings (1927), Cecil B. DeMille was already the acknowledged master of classic epic, and the film found him trying to top his own reputation. Not surprisingly, his silent portrayal of the Passion of Christ is more mannered than Mel Gibson’s, but it also shows more audacity and imagination. Whether depicting the spectral seven deadly sins abandoning Mary Magdalene the moment she sets eyes on Jesus or employing a brief blast of Technicolor for the Resurrection, DeMille pulled out all the stops. The two-DVD set is suitably sprawling, with both the original 155-minute 1927 version and the truncated 1928 cut.

Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1982), the film is more an epic of imagination and memory. Though he was associated with subtler drama and existential angst, Bergman proved as visionary as DeMille with his tale of two siblings navigating worlds of good and evil, wondrous fantasy and harsh reality. The emotional detail of the film gives it an epic sweep. At one point in Bergman’s own feature-length documentary, The Making of Fanny and Alexander, an assistant director offers a young extra her character’s personal history before the cameras roll and pan past her in a teeming market scene. Criterion’s deluxe five-DVD set is equally epic, with both the theatrical release and the far-superior cut made for Swedish television.

With Short Cuts (1993), Robert Altman offered something of a post-modern epic, using the short stories of Raymond Carver as his source material (the set includes a volume of the stories). While no stranger to ensemble pieces (such as A Wedding and Nashville), here Altman seems more intent on exploring the specific points of intersection between human beings, even in the sprawling expanse of Los Angeles.

While not an epic in form necessarily, Fritz Lang’s M (1931) holds a towering reputation as an essential film classic. Relating the tale of the child killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), the film is the acknowledged template for crime dramas in general and the serial killer genre in specific. This edition replaces a previous Criterion release with a beautiful new transfer of the recently discovered original negative and an entire disc of impressive new supplements. Of particular note are William Friedkin’s Conversation With Fritz Lang and archival commentary by Paul Falkenberg, the film’s editor, as well as a stills and storyboard gallery that highlight Lang’s meticulous compositional approach. So while the film may be filled with crooks and maniacs, the tale of its preservation is truly heroic.